Work in IT? It's hard to balance IT and a healthy lifestyle. Plus, we have that bravado that we can fix anything. After being diagnosed with diabetes type 2, I decided I should put what I've learned in a blog for others to be wiser. This blog is open to all health tips though.
If you want to collaborate with a post please reach me in twitter @arielsanchezmor

Sunday, November 29, 2015

My first post about being healthy in IT!

OK first things first, thank you Ariel for giving me the chance to blog about this topic.

Being in IT, we lead very static working lives, in general we just sit in an office chair and do not move!

That does not mean we are not busy, far from it! The issue is we are not physically active, and we don't burn much energy in comparison! Also lets be real, how many of your office spaces, has quick and easy access to junk food of some kind?!...I know my office does!

I am not here to rant on about healthy living and shoving it down your throat, but I will over my time blogging here, share my experiences and what has and hasn't worked for me over the years.

Since about 2008 or so I have worked in some form of Data Centre environment, and the one thing I have seen and experienced first hand, is people gaining weight and eating junk food. I worked shifts for nearly 8 years. That is 2x 12 hour day shifts and 2x 12 hours night shifts back to back, this kind of role is notorious for gaining weight.

This simply comes down to the fact that we are awake during the night, sometimes with not much to do and we eat crap during that time and we sleep awkward hours and our body clocks are just a right mess. It is very easy to fall into the spiral and it took a lot for me to keep on top of it.

I am not much of a gym goer, but I love martial arts and I train BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), it is a thinking mans martial art and it keeps you humble, your ego gets checked at the door consistently, from a mental and physical point of view this is great and I will blog more about that in the future too.

It is very easy for us to get stuck behind the desk all day, it happens to me loads. One thing I would recommend is a fitness tracker of some kind, they all have idle alerts. I have had a jawbone UP24 in the past (which I will review at a later date) and I am currently using this Mi Band. It is super cheap and on android (and I think Apple) you can set idle alerts and it logs your sleep patterns etc (So at this price is a no brainer!). I will review that later on too.

Having a fitness tracker was one of the main reasons I gave up shift work, as I really did see how bad my sleep was and it just wasn't healthy any-more. Having that visual representation really made me think about it long and hard.

As with many things in life, it is good to have an over arching goal, eg get this certification, get a new job, lose weight etc. These are big goals and going from zero to 100% is tough and this is where most people fall short. There is no reason to start big, you can do small consistent steps.

As a society we want instant gratification and quick fixes, but lets be real that isn't how it works! Lets say you have gained weight, that wasn't instantaneous, it happened over a period of time, so it will take a period of time to correct it.

The journey starts with a single step. It takes a strong person to admit that they have made errors and to have the will to fix it, half the time it is your own ego that stops you, because it is tough to admit you messed up, you became lazy, you let yourself go.

But you know what?! The real people who you see at the gym, put in all that effort, they aren't the ones who will laugh at you, most of the time they will respect you because...they know how it feels,

They have been there but they made the same decision as you, the people that may laugh are the ones that don't like the idea of you becoming better, because it will make them feel uncomfortable and remember you are improving yourself...FOR YOU..no one else....it is YOU AGAINST YOU.

You want that certification, do a bit of reading every day. You want that new job, work on aspects of it a few times a week. You want to lose weight, start by going for a walk and maybe have a bit more fruit.

Anyway I shall return later, with more in depth posts, I just wanted to get started!

If you want to have a look at my IT/Virtualization blog please feel free my vBlog